Table Of ContentFriends and Foes Volume II
Friends and Foes Volume II
Friendship and Conflict
from Social and Political Perspectives
Edited by
Graeme Watson, Barbara Gabriella Renzi,
Elisabetta Viggiani and Máiréad Collins
Friends and Foes Volume II: Friendship and Conflict from Social and Political Perspectives,
Edited by Graeme Watson, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Elisabetta Viggiani and Máiréad Collins
This book first published 2009
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Watson, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Elisabetta Viggiani
and Máiréad Collins and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-0333-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0333-5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface.......................................................................................................vii
Introduction................................................................................................ix
Chapter One
Male Bonding: The Difference between Friendship and Camaraderie.
Can Men Love Each Other?
Malachi O’Doherty.....................................................................................1
Chapter Two
The Songs of Yours and Mine:The Power of Performance
and Techniques of Persuasion in Political Song
Jaime Rollins McColgan.............................................................................9
Chapter Three
Conflict, Memory and Solidarity: The Campaign for Unity
in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Laura Eramian..........................................................................................21
Chapter Four
Transforming Conflict into Friendship: The Case of Nordic
Co-operation
Lasse Sonne...............................................................................................29
Chapter Five
Nietzsche’s Friendship Theory and its Contribution to Peace-Building
Olive Wardell.............................................................................................41
Chapter Six
Cosmopolitan Friendship Online
Adam Briggle and Edward Spence............................................................53
vi Table of Contents
Chapter Seven
“They are French, we are Marseillais”: Imagining Community
in French Football
Cathal Kilcline...........................................................................................65
Chapter Eight
Elements of Supportive Friendship at Work: A Study on the Relationship
Quality of Informal Career Support
Peter Yang and Jennifer M. Kidd..............................................................77
Chapter Nine
Empathy and Socialization: Present in Our Friends, Absent
in Our Enemies
Edmund O’Toole.......................................................................................91
Chapter Ten
Alberto Manzi and E Venne Il Sabato: Conflict and Friendship
Barbara Gabriella Renzi.........................................................................101
Friends and Foes: An Interview with Roberto Belloni............................111
Contributors and Editors..........................................................................115
Index........................................................................................................119
PREFACE
As doctoral graduates in the arts, humanities and social sciences
everywhere will know, life as a research student can be lonely and
isolating, and if things go really badly it could turn into a soul-destroying
nightmare of alienation. There is always a risk, as one seeks to become an
expert in a particular topic, of losing one’s bearings and becoming
dislocated from the wider research context, unable to articulate the ways in
which the key ideas that are driving the research are connected to the
concerns of a wider academic audience and with cultural communities
beyond. The struggle to situate our own expertise in a broader context is
typical of, if not essential to, the quest for the recognition and research
standing that comes with a doctoral study.
Academic supervisors and funding bodies alike are far more attuned
than they used to be to need to offer support to students who are engaged
in this struggle. Students are encouraged to attend seminars and
conferences, to present papers, to engage in interdisciplinary research
networks, even to organise research events. We may even provide
resources to facilitate these efforts, all with the intention of helping
students to find their own different ways of contextualising their research
and connecting it to that of others, within and beyond their own
disciplines. It is our responsibility to nurture an active community of
emerging scholars, capable of working across traditional disciplinary
boundaries on themes of contemporary social and political importance.
But supervisors can do little if the students are not willing to engage
themselves in this struggle for research connections. For this reason, it is
most encouraging for me as Head of an interdisciplinary University School
when a group of research students comes along, without prompting from
staff, and offers to organise a major, interdisciplinary, international
research event. It is wonderful when that same group of students goes on
to organise an incredibly successful conference on an extremely well-
chosen theme, while making minimal demands on staff time and financial
resources. It is better still when they go on to produce some highly
significant publications based on contributions made at the conference.
It has been my pleasure as Head of the School of Politics, International
Studies and Philosophy (PISP) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) to
witness the production of this second volume of essays in the Friends and
viii Preface
Foes series. It is edited by four members of our School’s research
community – Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Graeme Watson, Elisabetta
Viggiani, and Mairead Collins – and it emerges from a very successful
international conference of the same name hosted here at Queen’s in
November 2007, supported by the School in conjunction with the
University’s Institute of Irish Studies. The theme of ‘Friends and Foes’
provided numerous lines of inquiry to connect research in a wide range of
disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. While the first
volume examined the topic of friendship and conflict from philosophical,
literary and artistic perspectives, this volume investigates the theme from
sociological, political and anthropological points of view. With essays
included from both emerging and established scholars, each of the
contributions collected here stimulate our thinking on the ways in which
conflict and friendship interact as inescapable features of social and
political life, in a range of contexts from the interpersonal to the national
and global.
The social and political significance of friendship is easily overlooked,
in much the same way that topics such as love and happiness have been
overlooked for too long in social research, as if they were matters of little
public interest. What society could possibly flourish, or even survive, if it
failed to provide opportunities for the realisation of strong friendships,
enduring love or the hope of happiness? Friendship is the glue of any well-
ordered society. In an era marked by a rapid transformation of the nature
of friendship through the development of social networking technologies
and the ease of global travel – to name only two of many relevant factors –
it is timely to examine the conditions under which friendships may
flourish or flounder. The Friends and Foes series provides an excellent
introduction to these fundamental issues that are at the heart of any such
examination.
Shane O’Neill
Belfast, 21 October 2008
INTRODUCTION
The first volume of this series, Friends and Foes: Friendship and
Conflict in Philosophy and the Arts, focussed on philosophical and cultural
representations of the topic, found in literature, film and theatre. This
second volume explores friendship and conflict from social and political
perspectives. Together, the chapters provide a diverse and insightful
examination of the issue, with contributions from political theorists, social
anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and educationalists.
Beginning with an essay by Malachi O’Doherty, it is hoped that the
papers in this volume will appeal to sociologists and political scientists
concerned with themes of conflict resolution, identity, social capital,
community and well-being. The following is an outline of this volume’s
contents, as described by its contributors.
1. Malachi O’Doherty
Male Bonding: The Difference between Friendship and Camaraderie. Can
Men Love Each Other?
The history of the troubles tells us of heroic bonding and self sacrifice
among men, in the prisons in particular. It also tells us that comrades are
bound by loyalties that are militarily underwritten; disloyalty is
punishable, often by execution, and with the endorsement of the other
comrades. How does this compare with friendship, which should be
forgiving and allow for the sharing of secret feelings and fears? Yet other
arenas of male bonding, from the schoolyard to the football terraces seem
to follow the camaraderie model, which imposes uniformity and
discipline. And if honest friendship is difficult within a camaraderie
model, how much is it possible across the boundaries of a conflict? Is it
feasible that people from enemy camps might form deeper friendships?
What strengthens such friendships? The need to explain positions, to help
the other comprehend one's own 'side'. What erodes such friendships? Ties
of kinship, and the division of fear. Each is afraid of something different.
I, as your Protestant friend, may be much more frightened of your
neighbours than you are. This chapter essentially provides a contrast
between two models of friendship; one comradely, within a 'camp', the
x Introduction
other across a boundary between factions. It argues that the conditions of
division may impose a greater need for openness and understanding and
actually produce deeper friendship. And that's what you would expect: i.e.,
that those who transgress the limits of factional living learn more about
others and about themselves and become better people, more capable of
understanding others and, therefore, of befriending them.
2. Jaime Rollins McColgan
The Songs of Yours and Mine: The Power of Performance and Techniques
of Persuasion in Political Song
In Belfast, the image of Che Guevara adorns t-shirts, jackets, bags,
patches, flags, and his slogans are even graffiti-ed on walls and street
corners. Parades commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
Hunger Strikes incorporated Basque and Catalan cultures as fellow
comrades in a fight for equality and recognition, and in Derry the
Palestinian flag flies alongside the Tricolour. Why have these symbols
been chosen as a link between the communities, and what is gained
through linking the struggle? To answer these questions, at least in part,
this chapter examines political music in Northern Ireland and its changing
dynamic within the Republican community. Using theories drawn from the
work of James Scott, Cynthia Irvin, and Mark Mattern, it analyses the ties
made between the Northern Irish Republican community and other groups
who have struggled for social reform. With the recent rise of
communication technology around the world, and with music a readily
available and easily transmitted source of expression, it is not
extraordinary that global connections can (and will) be made. The chapter
focuses on Irish Republican political song, but the techniques of
persuasion used in this type of music – to reconfirm commitment,
influence the unsure, and educate the young – might readily be heard in
any type of music endeavouring for a ‘rebel’ or political aim. At this point
in Northern Ireland’s history, the songs serve to give a voice to the
people’s emotions and remind them that past struggles are not new, nor are
they alone. In Northern Ireland’s republican community, in the
commemorations of events marking social change, composers and
musicians facilitating the movement with music draw from outside sources
to inspire and renew the motivation of the community. From Joan Baez to
Victor Jara, Woodie Guthrie to Christy Moore and Cruncher O’Neill, the
captivation of political song is difficult to ignore. Eyerman and Jamison
assert that the artists’ ‘engagement was objectified in their art, and the
